So I watched this with the peewees last night, and was surprised by what a nice little piece of entertainment it was. We had avoided it up 'til now because the previews on the Disney Channel made it look particularly cloying, but they were only excerpting clips of two annoying characters who turned out not to be the film's leads. (That felt like a marketing mistake, but who's going to argue with the Mouse when it comes to marketing to kids?)

Anyway, there were a number of things to like about it. The leads had some decent acting chops (as these things go) and there actually seemed to be some chemistry between them, which almost never happens in these movies because of a combination of automaton showbiz kids and what I'll refer to as the Danny Pintauro Factor. For once, a kid cast as a high school basketball star at least looked like he might be skilled enough to make a high school basketball team. (Or at least beat Teen Wolf one-on-one.) And characters that seem one-dimensional at first turn out to have a little conscience and/or intestinal fortitude, which is beyond rare in these flicks.

Plus--the tunes weren't half-bad. (And believe me--if you haven't heard the kind of stuff that winds up in kid plays and musicals, that's a monster compliment. You'll stab forks in your ears at most of this stuff. Not so with this movie.)

Which brings me to the whole iTunes Music Store thing--FOUR of the songs from this movie are currently in the top 100 bestselling singles on the site. So...are the majority of folks who purchase from Apple in the 10-15 range? You look at the rest of the 100 and it sure seems so.

I don't know where I'm going with this, except to say that if you have kids or plan to spend time with any you're fond of anytime soon, you could do much, much worse than to spend a little time with High School Musical.





Feel free to reference this post of mine in the "You Know How I Know You're Gay?" thread.

Well this was the number one album in the country last week. I read an article about this in USA Today, I think, right after it was first on a few weeks ago. The point they were making is that Disney did a genius thing and put these songs on iTunes right away. So the kids get their parents to download them, and then since they're kids they want to have the real thing that they can hold (the physical CD) so their parents buy it too. Really smart marketing by Disney, but of course, that's pretty much what they do.

Those crafty bastards.

I read somewhere that industry insiders are calling it "The 'Grease' of the next generation". So be it.

nobody can actually jump that high.

Disney kid stars are genetically engineered to jump however high the Mouse demands.

this movie has been played pretty much nonstop in my house for quite awhile now. We've got the dvd, the cd, a signed poster, the video game; I'm thinking we might buy stock in the company - might save some money.

You have small people, Elco?

3 of 'em.

My 8 year old daughter LOVES this movie
Much like Elco the movie & CD are in constant rotation.

Seriously Slackmo, are you on drugs? NO ONE can beat Teen Wolf One-On-One. Not even with Flubber.

signed poster?

where'd you pick that up?

we got it at one of those young people's clothing stores in the malls - limited too or some such store.
They were giving away posters with any HSM purchases over $10, I think. We got a friend of my daughter's the DVD for her birthday.
I was kidding about the video game, but I'm sure we'll have it when there is one. Is there one?

Really? You don't think you take Michael J. Fox one-on-one these days?



(Jesus--I'm going straight to hell.)

Dude's got a mean stutter step now, but the rest of his game is pretty shaky.


(thought you might need some company down there)

Christopher Reeve did a great rope-a-dope.

I'm guessing the blonde girl in that pic is not old enough to ogle?

She's 21 according to IMDB, so ogle away. (Not that I would know or anything...)

I can't be the only one that had to sit through this.

My daughter and all her friends thought it was at least as good, if not better, than the original.

I can now look forward to seeing this movie and hearing the soundtrack about a thousand more times between now and the end of the year.

I did not have to sit through it, as I got lucky - the wife took the girls next door and watched it with some friends. Not only was I alone, but I got to watch football as well. However, I've already heard the soundtrack 5 times this weekend, and since my 8-year old's birthday was Saturday, our house is filled with HSM stuff and that was the theme of her party.

On a semi-serious note, I thought the soundtrack was far more pop music than the original. There didn't seem to be any real musical-type songs like the cafeteria one. I also thought it was comical that pretty much the entire soundtrack (and, I assume, the movie) was a carbon copy of the original - there was the ballad that Sharpay completely redid in an uptempo style, the sports song (this time baseball), etc. I guess if it ain't broke...

About that bizarre Hawaiian song (the bonus track) at the end of the soundtrack:

1. The wife thinks it is a song from a part of the movie that got cut. She said there was a part where Sharpay was wearing some sort of seashell dress which would make sense given the song.

2. The first thing that came to my mind listening to that song, and then my wife's description of what she was wearing, was (God help me) Dirty Dancing. I wonder if that was supposed to be a spoof on the song that Baby's sister sang at the talent show. I'm fairly certain she even wore a seashell top, and the song was Hawaiian, wasn't it?

OK, I'll end this post now that I've completely killed any credibility I might have had left on this board....

Yeah, this was event television for gradeschoolers.

I'm kind of surprised they didn't put this in theaters. (Not that it deserved the release, but I think it would've made a boatload of dough.)

I saw some baseball bit on The Soup. That clip was tough to sit through.

I wondered about that too...the first one was just another one of a long line of made-for-TV movies that did unexpectedly well. I guess they didn't want to screw with the formula on the second one. And given the amount of merchandise out there, which is where they'll make most of their money anyway, I guess they probably figured the more direct access to the movie, the better. Not to mention they'll probably end up with 5+ HSM2-related DVDs, anyway. They're even staging a Disney On Ice-type tour right now based on HSM, with none of the original cast - and I'm sure it'll sell out.

I think they also didn't want to subject the movie to reviews.

the brunette is hotter

They are all legal. According to some mag my daughter was reading, Corbin Bleu is the youngest cast member and just turned 18. So all the chicks are over 18, at least. I'm sure a couple of them are old enough to be the next generation's Gabrielle Carteris.

If you really want to ogle the blonde, watch Suite Life of Zak and Cody (God I hate my life!).

supposedly High School Musical 3 is going to be a theatrical release

I'm pretty sure these movies are reviewer proof

If we're talking Suite Life, the asian girl is easy on the eyes

hating my life too
we should form some sort of daddy support group

Yeah, we've got one on another board I'm on. Works as a combo "family life issues/here's a cute story about what my kid did yesterday" release thread. Of course, the member dynamic is a little different on this board compared to that one.

I don't really hate my life, of course, but bringing this back to music, I'm certainly listening to a lot of stuff I had spent a great deal of time insulating myself from over the past 15 or so years...

I saw that clip on the Soup too. Yikes.

But man, the cash they must be making...

I would estimate that just from my household, we've probably spent upwards of $750 on HSM-related stuff since June of 2006. Most of that is for tickets to the live tour last winter (about $300 worth), but there's the DVDs, posters, purses, CDs, clothing...hell, I might up that to around $900.

Thats NAMBLA-riffic.^^^^^^

I caught a bit of the first one on TV a week ago to see what the big deal was and its fucking terrible.
Unmemorable songs with all the depth of a fast food jingle.

It's aimed at grade schoolers and tweens. What did you expect?

Right, but Im not judging it on what it is, but how good it is at being what it is.

Its a shitty Whatever-it-is.

it's really good at making Disney dolla bill$

Kids of Widney High remaking Grease would have been better than what I saw.

In fact thats a good idea.
Maybe Mike Patton could cameo as Balmudo

'High School Musical 2' Sets Record

Aug 20 01:46 PM US/Eastern



LOS ANGELES (AP) - "High School Musical 2" proved the Disney Channel can boast of more than a one-hit TV wonder.
Friday's premiere drew an estimated audience of 17.2 million, which would make it the most-watched basic cable program ever, according to Nielsen Media Research. It more than doubled the viewership of the first movie, "High School Musical," which drew 7.7 million in 2006.

The basic cable record had been held by a "Monday Night Football" game on ESPN in 2006, which was watched by 16 million.

"High School Musical" has become a cultural phenomenon with hit records, concerts and newly minted young stars including Ashley Tisdale and Zac Efron. The sequel followed the summer adventures of students Sharpay and Troy and their fellow Wildcats of East High.

An updated version of Grease is exactly what it is. The premise of the original was 2 kids meeting on vacation, then ending up at the same high school.

The premise of HSM2 appears to be those Saved By the Bell episodes when they went to work for Leah Remini's dad at the beach club during the summer.

Except seemingly with Screech replaced by a thousand grimacing Zacks.

Yeah, except Grease wasnt awful.

Oh I know, in fact the IMDB page for HSM2 lists the working tiltle as Grease 4.

HSM makes Grease 2 seem like Grease 1.

Altho I actually quite like Grease 2. When I was a kid I wanted to be Adrian Zmed. Between that and Bachelor Party, dude was just too cool for like a week in 1984.

On this level, it's not really about it being awful. It's on Disney Channel - awful is a given. As a parent, I judge this kind of stuff differently. Annoying and fucking everywhere, but relatively harmless. I'd rather my girls listen to this soundtrack, as annoying as it is, then some of the stuff out there.

I kind of want to see these , just because I'm so fascinated with what a ridiculously pervasive cultural force they managed to be without my having any interaction with it at all.

so i was really excited to see this last weekend. i don't know why, but the catchiness/badness of the first one got my excited. I enjoyed it. Songs were catchy, the story was horrible, the character actions were insensible, and the scene of Zach Effron dancing in the field was pretty much the highlight of the theatrical year (you know, in a so-bad-its-amazing type of way.)

i am sure that my apartment will be watching this a whole bunch throughout the coming school year.

Yeah, I have no idea how I've pretty much managed to avoid this. I mean, I have yet to hear one single note from the soundtrack. I think I owe it to myself as a pop culture lover to look up some scenes on YouTube, but no telling when that will be. The only interaction I have with the cast is from flipping the channel past Dancing With The Stars last season and looking at the credits and noticing that Zac Effron was in an episode of Firefly.

On a completely unrelated note, Shia Lebouf was in an episode of Freaks and Geeks as well. Just kind of interesting seeing all these young actors as pre-teens.

i missed this thread the first time, but it's good to know now that slackmo is super gay.

so gay.

I listened to "Breaking Free" when it jumped 86-4 on the Hot 100. I was, uh, unmoved.

82 on Metacritic, somewhat befuddlingly.

And yes, cat lady, having children is gay.